And yet—knowing this—he took another step. Didn’t know why. Just did. His left foot dragged and left a furrow behind. The sun was coming up, the stars fading one by one until it was only Mars up there, ready to war with him another day. Have to peel his suit off soon. Last time. Palmer wouldn’t make it through this day, could no longer feel the hunger. The gnawing had become distant. He would die on the hot sand. This day—he was sure of it. Another two or three nights to Springston at that limping rate. The crows would get him. He could see them circling. They knew.

“Caw,” he whispered, the word choked back by his swollen tongue. “Caw.”

The sun topped the hill to his left and its naked rays struck his cheek like an open palm. A lucid memory of his father. Palmer remembered the only time his father had ever struck him. It was a joke. Just a joke. Second day with a dive suit on, wanted to show what Vic had taught him, was gonna do a full submerge, thought he was getting the hang of loosening the sand, making it flow. He opened a soft patch beneath his father’s boot and closed the sand around it, thought he’d be proud for the trick, thought he’d laugh.

Palmer remembered the bright flash of light and the crack like wood splitting. The fire on his face. A thousand sunburns. He’d been knocked to the sand, had lain there with the taste of blood in his mouth. His father standing over him, yelling at him, telling him to remember the code, the code he’d learned just the day before, what happens to any diver who makes a weapon of the sand. What the other divers would do to him.

It was the only time he’d ever hit him. And it was the last time Palmer had tried to make his father laugh. He’d been ten years old. Just about Rob’s age. Rob. Kid was too damn curious. Mom said he got it from their father. If it led to danger, whatever it was, it came from their father. What little good they had in them came from her. Her side of the story. Only left with her side, her version of events. That’s what Dad gets. His doing. His fault for leaving. Poor Rob. Too curious, that boy. Causing trouble. With only Conner to look after him.

And Conner… who just wants to be like his older brother, who wants to starve like his older brother and stagger along, a sack of skin draped on bones, shuffling across that hot sand before he was eaten by the crows. A diver. A dream of being buried without a marker. Lost in the sand. Chasing his misfortune. No… camping. His brother wasn’t a diver. He was camping. Four days under the sand. Three nights marching. A week. He would die the day his father had. The note by his belly was truth. Poetry and truth.

“Caw,” Palmer whispered to the circling crows. He reached down and shook the canteen as if it might have filled itself. Still the chance he might come upon a spring. An oasis. He marched for hours and hours, thinking on his brothers, on his life ending, amounting to nothing, watching for an oasis. The sun cooked the sand, and this day he didn’t stop. Didn’t pull his dive suit off. Didn’t bury himself in the sand. Wouldn’t make it to evening. Wouldn’t make it another step. But then he did. He doubted every step and took another. The crows cried in disbelief. Palmer tried to laugh, but his throat was closed tight, was swollen shut, lips cracked and bleeding and bonded together. When there, on the horizon, in the wavering heat of the afternoon sun, a tree. A solitary tree. A sign of water. Another mirage to stumble through, to kick up dry sand right through the middle of, but maybe this would be the one.

He veered toward the tree. Hoping. Moving with what vigor his bones had left. The tree was getting closer. Faster than his stagger ought to make it. The tree was rounding a dune. The mast of a sarfer. The crimson sail of rebels. Brock and his men.

Palmer tried to run, his brain remembering back to when that was possible. But his damnable body reminded him of more recent events by collapsing onto the sand. Palmer spit grit. He coughed—his swollen tongue in the way. Peering to the side, he saw the sarfer speeding toward him. Maybe they didn’t see him. But the damn crows, circling and diving, a cloud of swooping arrows, betraying him. Here, here, they cried. And the sarfer came.

Maybe to save him. The rebels would save him. Palmer nearly stood and waved his arms, and then he saw Hap’s gaping mouth full of sand, his body twisted out of shape, heard the shouts inside that tent to catch him and kill him dead. Two more nights of walking and he would’ve made it to the outskirts of Springston. This is what his fevered brain thought as he began scooping sand over his head. On his knees, his forehead against a dune, ass in the air, the wind offering little help, he scooped handfuls of sand and dumped them on the back of his neck, sobbed for help, sobbed beneath the gyring crows, trying to bury himself before someone else did.

There came the approaching crunch of a sarfer’s foils carving the desert floor, and then a spray of fine sand as the wind-powered craft slewed to a halt. Palmer kept his forehead to the ground and bit down on his whimpers. His back remained arched up into the sky, his dive suit hanging loose around him, sand spilling through his hair and down the cuff of his neck.

He heard the whir and zip of a line passing through gloves and wooden blocks. The creak of boom and mast and the noise of a sail depowered and left to flap in the wind. Boots landed on the sand and crunched toward him. A sword to spill him or a canteen to fill him, he didn’t have the courage or energy to look. Palmer had left his wits and senses a thousand dunes behind.

Someone asked him to show his hands, wanted to see his palms. They asked again. He tried to raise his hands but couldn’t. It was the sword. The sword was coming for him.

Strong hands fell on his shoulders and rolled him over. Sand fell from his hair and across his face. “Palm,” the voice said again. “Palm.”

The mirage of his sister. A hallucination. His sister, the red flapping sail of a rebel sarfer behind her. His sister, tugging her gloves off, wiping the sand from his cheek, the mud from his crying. She was crying as well. Fumbling with her canteen, hands shaking, a mask of horror on her face from the sight of him, Palmer unable to speak.

She lifted his chin, crying, “Palm. Oh, Palm.” Precious water was tipped over blistered lips and around his fat tongue. Palmer’s throat was a clenched fist. There was no swallowing. No swallowing. He felt the water evaporate in his mouth, slip inside his tongue, become absorbed. Vic poured more. Her hand shook, canteen and eyes leaking, whispered his name. Had come looking for him.

The water sat in his mouth until it disappeared. Another cap, and something like a swallow, a loud and painful gulp, a body remembering how.

“Danvar,” he croaked. “I found it.”

“I know you did,” Vic said. She rocked him back and forth. “I know you did.”

“Might be trouble,” Palmer hissed. He needed to tell her about Brock, about the bombs, about getting out of there.

“Save your strength,” Vic said. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

She wiped her cheeks, and Palmer watched as more tears spilled from her eyes. The loose sail flapped nearby, the crows watching to see what would happen, Vic telling him over and over that everything would be okay, even as she started sobbing. Even as she clutched him in her arms, whispering it would all be all right, but Palmer knew this was just a story, just a story told over a sputtering lantern in a family tent, and that it wasn’t true.

Part 4:

Thunder Due East

35 • Oasis

The sarfer crunched across the sand and slowed to a stop. Sand hissed against the bright red sail and spilled over the edge of the boom in a veil. Vic lowered the sail and studied the depression between the dunes. A handful of stumps poked feebly toward the sky, but whatever tall trees had lived there had long ago been butchered. Between the stumps there was a dark spot of sand, almost if the sun were casting a shadow. It was no oasis, but it would do.